Rais Xo'qandiy (Muhammad Sharif)

Biography

Rais Xo'qandiy — his given name was Muhammad Sharif — was a well-known poet, statesman and calligrapher who lived in the Khanate of Kokand in the late 18th and the first half of the 19th century. He took his pen name from the office he held, that of rais (muhtasib), the officer charged with overseeing the sharia and public order. Born in one of the learned centres of the Fergana Valley, he received a thorough religious and secular education and mastered classical Eastern poetics, fiqh, logic and the art of calligraphy. In the Kokand khanate the rais supervised the morals of the townspeople, prices in the bazaar, the honesty of weights and measures and the observance of the sharia; Muhammad Sharif was appointed to this responsible post for his justice, his learning and his firmness, and won great standing both among the people and at the khan's court. He was an active member of the famous literary gatherings of Amir Umarkhan's day, and among the three hundred and more poets assembled around Umarkhan and Nodirabegim he stood out for the depth of his thought and the finish of his verse. A zullisonayn poet, he wrote equally in Uzbek (Turki) and in Persian-Tajik, chiefly in the ghazal, the muhammas, the musaddas, the qasida and the chronogram. He is known above all for the muhammas he built on the ghazals of Alisher Navoiy, Sa'di of Shiraz, Hafiz of Shiraz and Bedil. Rais was not only a poet and an official but also an esteemed calligrapher: a master of the nasta'liq hand, he copied a great many literary and religious works. Several of the rare manuscripts he produced are kept today in the collection of the Abu Rayhon Beruniy Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan.

Works

• G'azal va qasidalar
• Muxammas va musaddaslar
• Ta'rixlar
• Nasta'liq xatida ko'chirilgan qo'lyozmalar